To enhance competition, many manufacturing companies seek to simplify various aspects of their businesses through automation. This is particularly true for those concerned with bulk manufacturing such as injection-molded manufacturing, where each step of production may yield a number of articles. Often, the rate at which such articles can be produced is limited only by how fast these articles can be removed, collected or dispersed. In view of this challenge automators have concentrated on fewer steps and more reliable methods. The present invention has succeeded in accomplishing both for the orientation of articles such as lids, closures and the like.
While the automated process for orientating objects such as lids goes back to at least the early 1970's, many of the devices of the prior art which claim to orient actually work by an accept/reject technique. This is clearly illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,599,829 to Aidlin, et al., and 4,093,062 to Sjogren. Both of these inventions separate properly oriented articles from improperly oriented articles by forcing the latter back into a holding bin or such. These improperly oriented articles are rejected in hope that they will correctly orient in their fall. In a rapid production process this could potentially cause an undesirable backup or at least add steps to the process.
A second technique used in the art is the indiscriminate flipping of articles. This is best illustrated by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,734,268 to Burger, et al. and 4,709,798 to Herzog. Burger supplies a constant air flow sufficient to flip upside down lids, while those correctly oriented deflect the air flow. Obviously, the strength of the indiscriminate air flow is very important, ensuring only improperly oriented lids are flipped. The Herzog invention employs essentially the same process for flipping the articles, but also combines the accept/reject technique. After the articles are flipped (or not) a sensor determines if any are still improperly oriented, triggering a blast of air to blow them back into a rotating bowl. Again, random processes are employed in hopes that proper orientation will occur. This indiscriminate process is also undesirable for some article designs where the continuous air may flip such articles irrespective of orientation.
A further consideration, in view of the Burger and Herzog patents, is the force which must be exerted upon each article. In such designs air flow must be great enough to overcome the weight of the article, while at the same time be small enough to have no effect on properly oriented articles. Thus, narrow margins can be presented.
The present invention, in both its apparatus designs and methods, recognizes and addresses these concerns and overcomes the limitations perceived by those skilled in the art by presenting a design which, among other aspects, allows for the flipping of only improperly oriented articles through selective application of a force on those articles. Particularly, the present invention allows utilization of a force less in magnitude than the weight of the article to correctly orient flat articles quickly and reliably. Other designs which attempt to orient flat articles merely reject those which are improperly oriented, or indiscriminately apply a force in an effort to flip no more and no less than those improperly oriented. The prior art demonstrates the substantial attempts made by those skilled in the art to fill the need for a quality orientor. Instead of understanding the true problem, manufacturers have coped with the inherent limitation to some of these devices and methods. Apparently, all because there was a failure to fully understand the problems of properly orienting articles such as lids, and the like.